In many ways, I'm maybe a bit unqualified to write a review of new BlackBerry hardware. I've never owned a BlackBerry device, and have only poked at a few over my years as an IT person—iPhone and Android handsets tended to be more popular even among the professional set. I have a passing familiarity with the Bolds and Curves that compose the company-formerly-known-as-RIM's pre-BlackBerry 10 product line, but my time as a smartphone owner began after the sun had set on the BlackBerry empire.

This means, however, that I'm looking at the BlackBerry Z10 and its accompanying operating system with the same eyes as many smartphone purchasers will be seeing the phone: to us, it's a new touchscreen-driven platform that goes up against two huge, entrenched competitors (and one scrappy contender with deep pockets). It's not good enough for the Z10 to be the best BlackBerry phone ever—it also has to defeat phones from the companies that have all but pushed BlackBerry out of a market it helped to pioneer.

The BlackBerry Z10 serves as a modern-day reboot for the company, and the phone's success or failure will likely dictate whether this is the beginning of a comeback or the end of the line. Where does it succeed, and where are its version 1.0 problems?

Body and build quality

Specs at a glance: BlackBerry Z10

Screen

1280x768 4.2" (356 ppi) IPS touchscreen

OS

BlackBerry 10

CPU

Dual-core 1.5GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Plus

RAM

2GB

GPU

Qualcomm Adreno 225

Storage

16GB NAND flash, expandable via microSD

Networking

802.11a/b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.0, NFC

Ports

Micro USB, Micro HDMI, headphones

Camera

8.0MP rear camera, 2MP front camera

Size

5.12" x 2.58" x 0.35" (130 x 65.6 x 9 mm)

Weight

0.30 lbs (135.4 g)

Battery

1800 mAh

Starting price

TBA. Likely $149 or $199 with a two-year contract.

Sensor

Ambient light sensor, GPS

Other perks

Power adapter, case, screen cleaner

For a company that has never really made a phone like this before, the actual hardware itself pretty much nails it. At this point, the modern smartphone's form factor is "a rectangle with a screen on front" in the same way that a laptop is "a screen with a keyboard attached," but BlackBerry has gone and made themselves a pretty nice rectangle.

The body of the phone is made of a solid black (or white) plastic. This is plastic construction done right—it's not too bulky (as is the Nokia Lumia 920), but it doesn't feel too light or "cheap" either (as some have said of Samsung's Galaxy S III). The phone has rounded corners and a (very) gently rounded back that feel good to hold. The back cover, which peels off to expose the phone's SIM card tray, microSD card slot, and removable 1800 mAh battery, is made of a lightly textured rubberized black plastic that provides a nice grip, again standing in contrast to the glossy, slick plastic and glass backs used by many other smartphones.

The Z10's size also contributes to how good it feels to hold—if, like me, you find the iPhone 5 to be a bit too thin but also find the Nexus 4 or the Samsung Galaxy S III to be a little too large for comfort (at least for sustained one-handed use), the Z10 finds a great middle ground. It's slightly larger than an iPhone 5 in every dimension: 5.12" tall, 2.58" wide, and 0.35" thick (compared to 4.87" by 2.31" by 0.30"). This also makes it a bit heavier (4.78 ounces compared to 3.95 ounces) compared to Apple's latest phone, but it's still very comfortable to hold and to carry.

Enlarge/ The soft rubberized back cover is broken only by an understated silver BlackBerry logo and the opening for the camera and LED flash.

Andrew Cunningham

Enlarge/ A microUSB port and micoHDMI port can be found on the left edge of the phone.

Andrew Cunningham

Enlarge/ The volume rocker and play/pause/voice control button are on the right edge.

Enlarge/ There's a speaker on the bottom of the phone—insert your fingernail here to pry off the phone's back cover.

Andrew Cunningham

Enlarge/ The Z10's many accessories: a case, power adapter, micro USB cable, headphones, and a screen cleaning cloth that says BlackBerry Playbook on it.

Andrew Cunningham

The phone also takes a step back from the trend toward larger and larger screens that defines the Android side of the fence at the moment—it's got an excellent 4.2-inch 1280x768 IPS four-point touchscreen, larger than the iPhone's 4.0 inches but smaller than the approaching-and-exceeding five-inch displays of phones like the Nexus 4 and the Galaxy Note II. The display is bright and colorful, and the 356 ppi pixel density makes text and images crisp and clear.

Enlarge/ The Z10 is a bit larger in every dimension than the iPhone 5.

Sound quality from the single speaker on the bottom of the phone is about as good as you'd expect—it gets reasonably loud but it's definitely tinny. Call quality is neither exceptionally poor nor exceptionally good—I called Reviews Editor Florence Ion on both her office phone and her cell phone, and she told me I sounded like I was on a cell phone. That should tell you about all you need to know.

The keyboard

Enlarge/ The Z10's predictive typing and accuracy are probably its two best virtues.

Andrew Cunningham

After spending some time with the phone as a daily driver, I can say without hesitation that the keyboard is my favorite thing about the platform. I suspect that there's quite a bit of overlap between the BlackBerry faithful and the physical phone keyboard holdouts, and in the Z10 BlackBerry has done an admirable job of making a software keyboard that physical keyboard adherents won't hate.

The first thing to like is its accuracy—even on larger phones like the Nexus 4 or Samsung Galaxy Nexus, the best I have been able to do with any given Android keyboard is to get used to its quirks, and while I generally have less trouble with the iOS keyboard, the keys are still small and I end up relying heavily on autocorrect to set my mistakes straight. The most common approach to predictive typing—giving a list of suggestions that float above the software keyboard, as in Android 4.1 and 4.2 keyboards—also leaves something to be desired, since it requires you to interrupt your normal typing flow to check out the words, pick one, and move your thumb up from its normal position to tap it.

The Z10's predictive typing isn't perfect but unlike other implementations of the idea, I've actually come to enjoy it and use it regularly. As you type, small word suggestions appear over top of the keys. It makes general suggestions for conjunctions and such when you're between words, but it will continue to make suggestions as you progress through words: typing a W, for instance, could make "where" appear over the H key, "would" appear over the O key, "water" appear over the A key, and so on. Flick upward from the key you want to make the words appear.

These words can be a bit hard to read depending on how quickly you type, and it's not always a sure thing that the word you want will appear anywhere on the screen as you type (though the keyboard will adapt to your typing patterns as you use it). I still dig the implementation, though, mostly because the way the suggestions appear doesn't require me to divert my thumbs from their normal course. Whether I want to type "where" out in full or auto-complete the word halfway through, my finger is still going for that "e" key, and I can quickly and easily move on to the next letter or word from there.

Being part of BlackBerry 10, the new keyboard would feel out of place if it didn't make use of a bunch of gestures—swipe from right to left to delete your last-entered word, and swipe down to cycle between the standard keyboard and the keyboard with numbers and symbols (both of which can also be accessed with buttons, for the swipe-averse). Polyglots will also appreciate the ability to choose up to three default languages for the typing suggestions—begin tapping out words in any of those languages, and the typing predictions will automatically begin offering you suggestions in the current language.

Enlarge/ ...but they sadly render as gibberish on other emoji-enabled platforms.

Casey Johnston

There are a few odd areas where the keyboard deviates from the standard touch keyboard experience for no real good reason—tapping the Shift key, for example, doesn't transform the characters on the keys from capital to lowercase or vice versa. This emulates the experience of using a physical keyboard a bit too literally, ignoring the inherent flexibility of soft keyboards. Engaging the caps lock is also different from how it's done on iOS, Android, or Windows Phone—you press and hold the Shift key rather than double tapping it, so prepare to unlearn that behavior if you make the switch from any other platform.

It also lacks some niceties that people coming over from other platforms might miss—Swype-like gesture typing is probably the most prominent example. However, it's an easy software keyboard to get used to, and it's got plenty of ideas that other platforms would do well to emulate.

Camera

The eight megapixel webcam is a solid point-and-shoot. Ars Associate Writer Casey Johnston already took it for a spin in her hands-on with the phone, and found that while it generally did a pretty good job, its shots were a bit fuzzy and lacked detail compared to her iPhone 4S. We busted out an iPhone 5 and Samsung Galaxy S III to get some further comparisons, and what we found mostly backed up her conclusions.

In this picture of my colorful desktop doodads, the three phones have to deal with less-than-ideal indoor lighting, and I tried to capture a corner of my desktop's monitor in the shot to see how they handled its (much brighter) light. The iPhone probably gets the clearest picture here (zoom in to see the detail on the phone's buttons), and while the colors are a bit saturated, they're generally accurate. The Z10's shot is both a bit fuzzier and a bit darker (though the colors are still fine); the Galaxy S III does a better job with the light, but things looked comparatively washed out.

Go outdoors, and the lighting differences between the three basically disappear. If you zoom in on some of the bricks especially, though, you'll find that the iPhone again does the best job with color and detail; the Z10 does well with color but loses detail, and the S III loses a little of both. Zoomed out (as they appear inline here, and as you'd probably see them on Facebook or where ever they'd actually be posted), the performance of all three is basically fine in good light—the Z10 isn't exceptionally good, but it's a perfectly serviceable point and shoot.

115 Reader Comments

Just being good isn't enough. Most smartphones users like me I imagine are slightly to heavily invested in one of the 3 existing ecosystems be it app store and music purchases for hardware like Airport Expresses and ATVs for iOS users. It will take more than something that's pretty good to force a switch. I said the same thing about WP. It too is great, but...

There are still plenty of Symbian users looking for a new home. Its only been two years since Symbian gave up its plurality marketshare of phones sold in the smartphone market, which means that many of these users haven't locked in with the "big three" yet. As an old E6 user, I am interested in the new Q10 Blackberry which has similar dimensions and a full QWERTY keyboard.

I have only one question though. Have they figured out yet that the world of email account doesn't consist solely of Exchange and BES? Of the many many terrible features of the old BlackBerry, I was always most surprised by it's complete inability to handle IMAP accounts. And worst of all, you had to hand your account password over to RIM so they could check it for you and then forward along the messages, crippling IMAP to the point it was no better than POP.

This looks good to me. The difference between Win8 and this is that there are millions (10's of millions - I think I heard 80M?) older blackberries out there. Those are people who did not or could not give up on the blackberry ecoystem. So they have a natural first wave to sell to which should generate some momemtum in apps and usage.There are a lot of badly behaving BB keyboards in my office alone, just waiting for these new models.

The "wow, cool" factors for me, neither one mentioned here, are Balance and Remember. I hate that the Galaxy blends my work and personal addresses. Balance sounds really good to me, and I am sure others will fell the same way. Remeber is just an app, but an OS level app that is really integrated.

Two dissapointments: 1) 4.2" is a little small, lots of room on the bezel there for 4.5 as on my S2x. and 2) I just bought two Sammy's for the wife and I for christmas. This would have been high on my list if it was announced 35 days ago.

Did they axe the ubiquitous options menu? That was one of my favorite things about the previous BBOS versions. In fact I don't think the menu was mentioned at all. Are all of the menu conventions gone completely?

I think BB10 is targeted at corporate use, and that's a smart move. Other platforms have supported those users as an afterthought so it gives Blackberry a niche in which it already has a great deal of experience.

Unfortunately I think it's not going to provide the competition in the mainstream that we'd like; however it may have done enough to save itself.

Should have done this back when 70% of enterprises still had BES servers...now that its down to only 4% its TOO LITTLE TOO LATE.

Without BES, the cool features of the phone are useless.

At best this will just sell to a few of the 4% that still use the existing Blackberrys, and that market is getting smaller everyday.

They missed the boat. They will never get new businesses(and more importantly the business users) to convert BACK to blackberry after they have left to Windows, Android or iPhone infrastructures.

Where did you get those stats? Our BES license count has been drifting down, from a high of 360 (2007)to 130 last year - but the server is still there. staying at 130 or moving to 200 makes no difference to us.

BYOD was driven by users not wanting two phones: one for corporate email (that was useless for anything else) and one for everyhing else (that was useless for corporate email). Now that BB has a phone that does 'everything else' the BYOD push should abate a little.

Id rather buy my own iphone then take a free old BB to avoid carrying two phones around. But if I was offered a free Z10...well that changes the dynamics a lot, doesn't it? Now your free corporate phone can do it all...

I really want to see BlackBerry succeed. I'm saying this as an iOS user who doesn't necessarily want to migrate juuust yet.

iOS has felt stagnant for the past few years. I like it as an OS, but evolution seems to be slowing-down. Maybe it's a natural trend - so much of the heavy lifting has been done already. That being said, it would be good to get some more competition going to keep Apple on its toes.

Notification Center is really nice, and now you can get Facebook and Twitter notifications pushed to your phone... just like you could before those feature were rolled into the OS.

Apple Maps happened.

Passbook rolled out as a blank screen with no information and a single button that took you to the App Store.

The little annoyances never seem to get fixed. Typing when a call comes in? You're probably going to hang-up on them before you realize what's happening. In Airplane Mode? Your iDevice is going to hit you with a modal pop-up Every. Single. Time. you switch to an app while in Airplane Mode.

Google and Apple seem to be settling into a duopoly. Windows Phones are well... a nice idea, but don't seem to be getting much traction.

The more competition the better. We'll all benefit in the end. And some of us just might switch platforms.

..goes up against two huge, entrenched competitors (and one scrappy contender with deep pockets ..link to windows phone story..)

..

There's just not enough here to recommend switching if you're a mostly contented iOS, Android, or Windows Phone user.

There are other mobile OSes that just like Windows Phone are competing for third place. It's cool if you are rooting for Windows Phone, but to keep mentioning only it in the context of competitors to the entrenched iOS and Android seems biased.

I think BB10 is targeted at corporate use, and that's a smart move. Other platforms have supported those users as an afterthought so it gives Blackberry a niche in which it already has a great deal of experience.

Unfortunately I think it's not going to provide the competition in the mainstream that we'd like; however it may have done enough to save itself.

I don't think it was supposed to break out widely in the consumer market, that will be BB11. This is meant to hold on to existing business users and get positive word of mouth for the company. Once they get out of immediate danger they can design something more crossover friendly.

Blackberries always excelled at corporate emailing and calendaring. Why is there no mention do these capabilities or the BES in e review?

To answer this and others who are asking similar questions: we're working hard on the BB 10 operating system review, literally at this very moment, and I'm targeting Tuesday for publication. Andrew's piece is intended to be a look at the Z10 itself. We'll be going much more in depth into the BB10 OS in the upcoming piece.

I have only one question though. Have they figured out yet that the world of email account doesn't consist solely of Exchange and BES? Of the many many terrible features of the old BlackBerry, I was always most surprised by it's complete inability to handle IMAP accounts. And worst of all, you had to hand your account password over to RIM so they could check it for you and then forward along the messages, crippling IMAP to the point it was no better than POP.

The email system has been completely rewritten. It has native support for ActiveSync, IMAP (with IDLE), and POP3. Plus CardDAV and CalDAV for contacts and calendar. BES10 no longer uses a proprietary protocol, but instead supports either standard ActiveSync or ActiveSync over a compressed and encrypted VPN-like link that's routed via BlackBerry's data centers.

I watched the Blackberry launch event Wednesday and it left a lot of questions. Your review Andrew is the first I've read that answered most of them. I still have a few:

1. What would be the level of difficulty of use of the swipe gestures if the phone were not held, but flat on a surface? Easy? Usable? Difficult? I ask to establish how it will port to tablet format, which is often not hand-held. 2. Blackberry appeared to have a competitor to FaceTime, with some elements of superiority: ability to switch back and forth between voice and video modes; document and video-sharing. How well does that work?3. Does the work/personal on-device separation permit dual mode for some apps, or do you need two installed if a same app is used for different purposes. Can you have separate work/personal email? Can you restrict the hub so in work mode it excludes some social features such as Facebook? 4. How is it shooting and playing video?5. Ease of use and quality of the music player?

From the user perspective, Apple, Google, and MS provide cloud services. BlackBerry needs something comparable, without additional cost. Many providers charge extra for BB handsets, since they require BIS. It's not just the cost of the handset, having to shell out more money each month for the privilege of using a BB doesn't make me want to switch.

Should appeal to their established user base and attract some new customers. I agree that the pricing could/should be a little more competetive. The learning curve for the gestures could be slightly steeper than some people want but I've always enjoyed new things like that and if they work well when used they'll be fine. I like the HUB.

I like the idea of a true dual-use (work/casual) phone. One device for all.

Edit: Just saw a review from a reporter who's had it for a week (casual non-teckie type). She liked the phone a lot and the UI in general. Thought the camera was not as good as the iPhone's but the editing software was interesting. Didn't have any complaints about the gestures at all.

Good review. As someone who finds many of the conventions of the modern smartphone to be utterly unintuitive and counterproductive, I'm pleased to hear that Blackberry is going in a different direction. I'm looking forward to reading the full software review, and in particular want to learn more about the multitasking. I had thought that the "fake multitasking" of iOS and Android would annoy me on a philosophical level, but that on a practical level it would be good enough that I would get used to it, but after two months with my GN2 I'm amazed at how often not having multitasking screws up my workflow. Start typing something into the browser, switch to another app to check a reference, switch back and have the browser reload erasing everything you had just written. Or have a video that had been buffering start fresh again because I decided to read an email. My list of annoyances with Android grow longer everyday I use it, but a good portion of the complaints all stem from design decisions that have been made because the OS decides when to kill a program instead of the user.

..goes up against two huge, entrenched competitors (and one scrappy contender with deep pockets ..link to windows phone story..)

..

There's just not enough here to recommend switching if you're a mostly contented iOS, Android, or Windows Phone user.

There are other mobile OSes that just like Windows Phone are competing for third place. It's cool if you are rooting for Windows Phone, but to keep mentioning only it in the context of competitors to the entrenched iOS and Android seems biased.

Serious question, which ones that are currently on the market? As far as I can tell in the U.S. we currently have iOS, Android, WP8 and this will soon be joined by BB10. Outside of the U.S. there is Symbian and Bada, both of which are pretty much dead platforms I think. Then we have a bunch of announced and upcoming OSes like Tizen, Sailfish, Ubuntu, and Firefox Mobile...none of which are available yet (and probably at least a couple on that list won't initially be available in the U.S. when they do get released).

As mentioned above, I'm really unsatisfied by the current crop of smartphones, so I'm really rooting for one and all of these to succeed and build something great...but at the moment am I missing an OS that is currently competing beyond the top 3?

My list of annoyances with Android grow longer everyday I use it, but a good portion of the complaints all stem from design decisions that have been made because the OS decides when to kill a program instead of the user.

This can be argued both ways. The application itself has a choice of what parts of its environment to save when it is ordered to suspend. Your device also can halt this by having enough memory to keep the background app's state. If you're on some crappy 160 MB Galaxy Mini, you're going to lose more state than my 512 MB ZTE Blade, which will in turn lose more than my 1 GB Nexus 7.

iOS and Android handle this in exactly the same way. "Am I short on memory? Yes? Suspend the least used, but most memory hungry app that is not currently in focus."

Good review. My wife was on BlackBerry and is generally happy with her new Android device other than the radio performance, so this might have been the phone for her if it came out six months ago.

The home gesture description made me wince. One of the things I found with my previous Android phone and a soft home key is that you're reliant on the OS to find time to interpret your keypress whilst an app is misbehaving.

As am example, if an app gets into such a state that it starts to deprive the OS of timeslices, the wait to get into the application management options to force stop it becomes very frustrating.

This is a non event on the galaxy S-III, and the ipod touch I use occasionally is also very responsive.

Throwing the extra work of interpreting a gesture into the mix ... Just not good HCI. Bugs happen in the real world, and this is quite an oversight.

My list of annoyances with Android grow longer everyday I use it, but a good portion of the complaints all stem from design decisions that have been made because the OS decides when to kill a program instead of the user.

This can be argued both ways. The application itself has a choice of what parts of its environment to save when it is ordered to suspend. Your device also can halt this by having enough memory to keep the background app's state. If you're on some crappy 160 MB Galaxy Mini, you're going to lose more state than my 512 MB ZTE Blade, which will in turn lose more than my 1 GB Nexus 7

I'm on a Galaxy Note 2, so it should be able to handle a fair amount I think, yet trying to do an alt-tab like cycling between 3-4 apps quite frequently ends up with one of them having to reload somewhat fresh...yet it never seems to want to kill the apps that I do want to have a full exit from.

Quote:

iOS and Android handle this in exactly the same way. "Am I short on memory? Yes? Suspend the least used, but most memory hungry app that is not currently in focus."

Yes, which is why I said that I had a problem with all the "modern" mobile OSes. To me a basic requirement of any OS, desktop or mobile, is to distinguish between a user minimizing an app and closing it. Something that worked fine on mobile devices 6+ years ago, but that new OSes seemed to forget.

Looks like a nice phone but unfortunately there are still several factors we don't know: what the app ecosystem will be like 2 years from now and how long it will get software updates for. The former is one of Android's big strengths and the latter is one of Android's big weaknesses. A phone that can deliver on both would be a decent alternative to Android.

Also, I wonder how mod-friendly these phones are: do they have unlocked bootloaders? Can I sideload apps? How much can apps customize the OS?

I watched the Blackberry launch event Wednesday and it left a lot of questions. Your review Andrew is the first I've read that answered most of them. I still have a few:

1. What would be the level of difficulty of use of the swipe gestures if the phone were not held, but flat on a surface? Easy? Usable? Difficult? I ask to establish how it will port to tablet format, which is often not hand-held. 2. Blackberry appeared to have a competitor to FaceTime, with some elements of superiority: ability to switch back and forth between voice and video modes; document and video-sharing. How well does that work?3. Does the work/personal on-device separation permit dual mode for some apps, or do you need two installed if a same app is used for different purposes. Can you have separate work/personal email? Can you restrict the hub so in work mode it excludes some social features such as Facebook? 4. How is it shooting and playing video?5. Ease of use and quality of the music player?

Thanks

1. Most of the gestures should easy to do when the phone is on a flat surface except the "Peak" gesture. "Peak" definitely a thumb centric gesture. Not impossible but not a natural when holding it.2. Not sure yet.3. I would check out this video. It should answer most of your questions. Blackberry Balance Demo4. Seems to be very quick and responsive.5. The music player works good.

BlackBerry was really stuck in a tough spot with this one. They pushed the Z10 out before the Q10 because they knew a large part of the phone buying public would groan at the sight of the physical keyboard and square screen. So this was probably a smarter move. But it was also a stupid move because the Z10's form factor puts it in very direct competition with competitors with more money, more mindshare, more experience, more hardcore fans, and pretty much more of everything you need to make an excellent phone instead of a pretty good one. Pushing the Q10 first would have put some space between BlackBerry and competitors and allowed them to show something that the others don't have at all right now to distract from all of the ways in which BB10 is just OK and not awesome. But then you have the groaning again... I don't envy BlackBerry's difficult position right now. Not one bit.

I like the bezel-swipe-oriented UI. I find bezel-swiping on my Windows 8 tablet a very pleasant way to interact once I learned the gestures. Combined with some nice-looking hardware that sounds like it will have better availability than Windows Phone, combined with better name recognition than Windows Phone, combined with more current Blackberry users (particularly in foreign markets) than Windows Phone, and I think BB10 stands a good chance of fighting off WP8 for third place in the smartphone race.

Not bashing WP--I currently own a WP7.8 phone--just calling it like I see it. May consider a BB10 phone over a WP8 phone as my next device.

..goes up against two huge, entrenched competitors (and one scrappy contender with deep pockets ..link to windows phone story..)

..

There's just not enough here to recommend switching if you're a mostly contented iOS, Android, or Windows Phone user.

There are other mobile OSes that just like Windows Phone are competing for third place. It's cool if you are rooting for Windows Phone, but to keep mentioning only it in the context of competitors to the entrenched iOS and Android seems biased.

Serious question, which ones that are currently on the market? As far as I can tell in the U.S. we currently have iOS, Android, WP8 and this will soon be joined by BB10. Outside of the U.S. there is Symbian and Bada, both of which are pretty much dead platforms I think. Then we have a bunch of announced and upcoming OSes like Tizen, Sailfish, Ubuntu, and Firefox Mobile...

Symbian is available in the US, I believe most featurephones still use it. I bought one recently in California. And some of those other OSes have dev phones available. Bada/Tizen already have a large userbase in the far East and are expanding into Europe now. There is also Mer that was not in that list, as well as WebOS. Note also that it's Firefox OS, not Mobile for the phone OS.

So yeah, there are lots of OS options in the global market. A little less if you just look in the US, but that's a pretty limited perspective.

I have only one question though. Have they figured out yet that the world of email account doesn't consist solely of Exchange and BES? Of the many many terrible features of the old BlackBerry, I was always most surprised by it's complete inability to handle IMAP accounts. And worst of all, you had to hand your account password over to RIM so they could check it for you and then forward along the messages, crippling IMAP to the point it was no better than POP.

The email system has been completely rewritten. It has native support for ActiveSync, IMAP (with IDLE), and POP3. Plus CardDAV and CalDAV for contacts and calendar. BES10 no longer uses a proprietary protocol, but instead supports either standard ActiveSync or ActiveSync over a compressed and encrypted VPN-like link that's routed via BlackBerry's data centers.

The article also explicitly said that BB10 natively supports Gmail, Yahoo mail, and "other major web mail services." So, it covers the vast majority of mail services out of the box.

That said, I do share your concern about pass-through accounts. That is a legacy of BB from years ago, when push mail was uncommon. I suspect that ActiveSync would now be direct-to-server, and not routed, since ActiveSync brings its own push, sync, and management features.

If Gmail has to rely on IMAP, CalDAV, and CardDAV, I will not be so happy, but that will probably be Google's fault, and not BB.

decent review...miss that z10/bb10 is close to the webOS idea and especially that the bezels are active parts, which was a palm innovation only a few people - who buyed webOS devices - really fell in love with. sadly. although there will be an extra software test this fact should be mentioned maybe more detailed. to me this aspect makes it a special device. to be honest, i love the idea and this is why i am glad with my playbook that much which uses the same good idea. still painfull to talk about webOS again...my palm pre 2 sits on its beautiful touchstone while wireless charging. something that blackberry missed too.

Andrew Cunningham / Andrew has a B.A. in Classics from Kenyon College and has over five years of experience in IT. His work has appeared on Charge Shot!!! and AnandTech, and he records a weekly book podcast called Overdue.